Artist: Lilian Miller
Medium: Original Japanese Woodblock Print
Series Title: Korea Series
Edition: First
Date: 1934
Publisher: The Artist - Privately Published
Reference No.: Brown Figure: #83; cat. #93
Size: 10 -3/4 x 15 -1/4 "
Condition: Very fine, with superb colors
Notes:
Pencil titled and signed by the artist. Privately published in limited impressions by the artist, surviving examples are typically titled in pencil and hand-signed "by Lilian Miller" in the lower margin.
The composition is a prominent stylistic variant of her popular earlier print from 1928 titled, "The Crescent Moon Rides Low" (Korea Series). In the 1934 edition, Miller reversed the foreground hillock from right to left, expanded the river to dominate the center, enlarged the right-hand mountain, and replaced the slumbering village with a shrine gate.
This piece stands as one of Miller’s final major woodblock achievements. By 1935, a severe battle with cancer forced her to stop wood engraving—a process that had become too physically demanding. Combined with the rising nationalist tensions in Tokyo, she moved to Hawaii shortly after, turning her artistic focus toward watercolors, ink paintings, and lithographs.